Women are more likely to survive a heart attack if their doctor is female, study finds

Research published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that female patients are two to three times more likely to survive a heart attack when the doctor overseeing their care is also a woman.

In fact, both men and women suffering heart attacks fared better when treated by female doctors or when treated by men working alongside more female clinicians, the authors reported.

Previous research has found better outcomes among hospitalized Medicare patients treated by women, but the underlying reasons remain murky at best.

One possible reason for this is that female physicians tend to share more information with patients and to focus more on partnership and patient participation while Male physicians tend to stick to "the facts," emphasizing the patient history and physical exam.

Much like shoes or skinny jeans, heart attacks can fit women a little differently than men. Their symptoms don't always look the same, and for a meshwork of reasons, physicians all too often fail to diagnose heart attacks in women with enough time to intervene.

The consequence: Women are more likely to die from heart attacks than men are. But, according to a new study, not if they're treated by female doctors.

The research, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that female patients are two to three times more likely to survive a heart attack when the doctor overseeing their care is also a woman. But the difference diminished when male doctors worked in emergency rooms with a higher percentage of female physicians.

In fact, both men and women suffering heart attacks fared better when treated by female doctors or when treated by men working alongside more female clinicians, the authors reported.

These findings raise an unavoidable question: Are women better doctors? And, does rubbing elbows with women physicians help men become better clinicians? The answers are more convoluted than the questions.

Previous research has found better outcomes among hospitalized Medicare patients treated by women, but the underlying reasons remain murky at best.

"It's important to not get caught up in the idea that women are better doctors," said Dr. Klea Bertakis, a physician and researcher at the University of California, Davis, who studies gender dynamics in health care. "It's not a men-against-women kind of thing, it's what are the best practice styles and how can we teach them."

Bertakis pointed to specific practice behaviors — female physicians tend to share more information with patients and to focus more on partnership and patient participation. Male physicians, on the other hand, tend to stick to "the facts," emphasizing the patient history and physical exam, she said.

Dr. Sharonne Hayes, a cardiologist at the Mayo Women's Heart Clinic, broke down one common explanation for the differences in outcomes for male and female heart attack patients — the symptoms.

During a heart attack, women are less likely to experience chest pain, and are more likely to present with nausea and vomiting. But Hayes pointed out that there are more similarities than differences: 30 % of both men and women won't experience chest pain, and men can have nausea, too. The symptom hypothesis doesn't fully explain the different rates of diagnosis and survival.

Hayes suggested that part of the problem is that physicians and people in general are "still stuck with some confirmation bias about who gets a heart attack."

The new study, conducted by three business school professors at the University of Minnesota, Washington University in St. Louis, and Harvard, started by looking at whether gender concordance between patients and the attending physicians in the emergency department influenced survival.

"There's relatively deep streams of literature in economics, political science, and sociology that suggest when advocates differ from the people they advocate for, there are often penalties," said lead author Brad Greenwood of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.